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Thursday, February 5, 2015

A ring of light, or halo, appears around the moon. The planet Jupiter is visible within the arc of light.

Wíačhéič’ithi: She Makes A Fire

A Ring Around The Moon

By Dakota Wind

GREAT
PLAINS – It’s a clear
cold night on the Northern Plains, following a cloudless icy day. A blanket of
snow on the driveway had become compacted into crunchy ice over the past week. The
sun bathed the land in silent golden light then he slipped over the horizon.
The stars gradually blinked into their places in the vesper dusk. The full moon
slid into the night sky and glided higher and higher. A vast gently glowing
halo encircled the moon and altogether her milky white light spilled into the
heavens.

I was standing beside my car one
minute taking in the serene brisk scene. I imagine for a moment that another
man stood here beside his horse in long ago days, outside the glow of his wife’s
lodge, standing in the same snow, under the same sky, perhaps even breathing in
the same air.

The part of my mind that has been
educated and westernized says that the ring around the moon is probably caused
by a light refracting through moisture in the atmosphere, and a quick internet
search says pretty much the same thing. Science is beautiful in its own way as
it questions and sometimes reveals the mystery of creation, but this explanation
doesn’t endear me to the majesty of what I see above.

The Lakȟóta
saw the natural world, the natural heavens and concluded that what happens here
happens above. The thípi glowing in the evenings, filled with the smell of
sweet cedar, earthy sage, or rich tobacco, and a mother or grandmother stirring
her kettle of tȟaníǧa
soup over the fire, now and then adding handfuls of shelled corn and dried thíŋpsiŋla.
The way she stirred her kettle reminded the Lakȟóta
of the phases of the moon.

A column of moonlight reflected on a body of water is called a "moonglade." The Lakȟóta call this "Mníyata Ožáŋžaŋ."

Kevin Locke, enrolled member of the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, recalled a meeting long ago with Mrs. Holding Eagle
at her home on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, “She said the phases of
the moon were caused by how hard she stirred her kettle.” Mrs. Holding Eagle
referred to the moon, in this sense, not as Haŋwí, but as Hokhémi, an old woman
bundled in layers of clothing. The phases of the moon are described as though
she were standing at times, dipping, or lying down, and at the full moon she is
at her kettle.

When a ring of light appears around the
moon, it is Hokhémi building a fire. Wíačhéič’ithi, “She Makes A Fire.”

Mrs. Amanda Grass on the Standing Rock
Sioux Indian Reservation explained that as the moon wanes, as the moon loses
light, the moon itself is the lodge of Haŋwí, and a large mouse with a pointed
nose would nibble at the edge of her lodge, going back and forth, gradually, until
there was nothing left. When the moon waxed, it was Haŋwí patiently and persistently
rebuilding her lodge until it shown full once more. Then the cycle continued.

The cold shakes me from my reverie and
I walk across the compacted snow to my home. The horse beside me a moment ago,
replaced now by a little silver car. The windows warmly aglow, smells of supper
adrift from the door, different smells and different light but homey all the
same.